THE AMERICAN WAR TILL THE FALL OF YORKTOWN
The course of the war in 1780 was dictated by the political conditions. France, disappointed by the futile end of the great demonstration in the Channel in 1779, did not renounce naval warfare in European waters, but was turning her attention towards giving more effectual aid to the Americans, and to efforts in combination with the Spaniards for the entire expulsion of England from the West Indies. Spain watching Minorca, and blocking Gibraltar, was prepared to co-operate with France in Europe and the Antilles, while making an effort to recover Florida. Don Bernardo de Galves, sailing from Havana, did achieve success in this minor and isolated operation. The most effectual defence for us would have been to blockade Brest, Ferrol, Cadiz, and Toulon. But with an equality of numbers against us and the peremptory obligation to give naval support to the army in America—the cancer which drained our strength in all these years—the high line could not be taken. Moreover, the rigid enforcement of our belligerent rights against neutrals at sea was steadily bringing us into collision with Holland, to the verge of a conflict with the Northern Powers, Russia, Prussia, and the Scandinavian States, and this would have been sheer ruin; for the revolt of the plantations had cut us off from the supply of American naval stores, and we were dependent on the Baltic for timber, pitch, and hemp, without which our fleets could not have been fitted for sea.
D’Orvilliers and Luis de Córdoba having shrunk away from the Channel in September 1779, we were at liberty to set about defending our remoter interests, the relief of Minorca and Gibraltar, and the strengthening of our naval position in the New World. Mention has been made of the sailing of Arbuthnot in June. He had with him a convoy of 400 merchant-ships with stores for General Clinton at New York. Having turned aside to defend the Channel Islands, he sent his convoy into port to wait for him. A shift in the wind delayed his departure from the Channel, and though he got away safe under the wing of Hardy’s grand fleet, he did not reach New York till August. Here he took over the command from Sir John Collier, who had superseded Gambier, and he co-operated in December 1779 with Cornwallis in the taking of Charlestown, in Carolina, after the retreat of D’Estaign from before Savannah. In the West Indies Hyde Parker had a superiority of force over D’Estaign’s successors, the Comte de Grasse and La Motte Picquet, and was able to confine them to Fort Royal.